New Street Law: The Complete First Season

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All Rise...

Judge Kristin Munson is completely jealous of her British colleagues. Where they get long robes and horsehair wigs, she has to make do with black plastic ponchos and hair rollers.

The Charge

Res Ipsa Loquitur: The Thing Speaks for Itself—Legal term and
fancy-pants Latin

Opening Statement

I'm not trying to justify my classics minor with my charge (The ability to
translate every filthy line Catullus ever wrote is a reward unto itself); I'm
simply presenting evidence. New Street Law's like an English Law &
Order with just a spritz of L.A. Law. Its ability to strike a balance
of personal drama and legal procedural makes it a court show that absolutely
speaks for itself. It doesn't have much choice because, once again, a heavily
accented program is imported without subtitles.

Facts of the Case

New Street Law charts the legal trials and personal tribulations
within the chambers of Jack Roper. Jack (John Hannah, The Mummy) is a hopeless idealist in search of
the truth but luckily Annie (Lara Cazalet, Bad Girls) is around to knock
him and the other boys down a peg. Joe (Lee Williams, The Wolves of Kromer) and Charlie (John
Thomson, Cold Feet) both want to hit the big time but Joe's a recent
graduate and Charlie's got two wives and three kids to take care of. Even as
they're fighting for their clients' freedom, they're struggling to make ends
meets.

• "Episode 1" Jack represents a teenager who
confessed to torching the family home with her father still inside. Annie and
Charlie aren't happy defending a couple accused of conning the elderly out of
their life savings.

• "Episode 2" The chambers are dangerously short
on cash but Jack refuses to compromise on a class action lawsuit against a
company accused of dumping toxic waste in a local landfill. Joe defends a sexpot
shoplifter who "forgot" to pay for some panties.

• "Episode 3" In a grueling double header, Jack
defends a man who murdered his wife under the influence of prescription drugs
while Annie is down the hall trying to win custody of his daughter from the
murdered woman's parents.

• "Episode 4" All it takes is one big break.
Charlie goes looking for some press by representing a game show host suing a
tabloid over a story that says he hired call girls to dress him in diapers. Joe
tries his first major case, defending a new mother who ran over an elderly woman
with her car.

• "Episode 5" In a racially charged police
brutality case, Jack represents an Asian officer accused of beating a suspected
terrorist while Charlie defends his white partner. Joe has to confront his past
when attempting to prove a man who's been kept in an asylum most of his life is
actually sane.

• "Episode 6" As a favor to his solicitor, Jack
takes on the defense of a Robbie Williams impersonator charged with social
security fraud. Annie and Charlie go to bat for a family whose child was
permanently brain damaged during a botched birthing operation.

• "Episode 7" Jack defends a former client
charged with the attempted murder of an undercover police officer. Joe's career
gains momentum when he pulls the case of a man who destroyed a security camera
to get back at the cops who wrecked his life.

The Evidence

You'll notice in the episode descriptions that not a lot goes on in the
personal lives of this Manchester law group. That's because the law is their
life, especially when each fee means keeping a creditor off their back or their
computers from being repossessed. The lawyers' personal lives don't override the
legal cases but the writers work them in as motivators or objects of stress,
sometimes stretching to find personal motivations for every case. However,
unlike the outing of Serena Southerlyn in Law and Order, episodes don't
drop nonsensical bombshells in the final 30 seconds of a character's
appearance.

New Street Law is about the courtroom, not the bedroom. The first
season is packed with standalone court cases, as many as three an episode. While
none of the cases get as twisty and intriguing as the premiere's arson case,
between shoplifters and medical malpractice suits cases run such a gamut from
light to dark that there's at least one story to pull you into any episode.

While the noble legal aid lawyers are the focus of the show, the program
never takes the easy road of painting black and white stories in broad strokes.
The rival chambers may work upstairs in a swanky office while Roper's team
slaves in an unfinished basement, but it doesn't automatically mean the poorer
clients are wrongly accused underdogs. Some of the defendants are unpleasant,
manipulative, and utterly guilty and the lawyers from both chambers will do
anything to win, even if it isn't strictly legal. Along the way it comes out
that the two chambers are connected in more ways than one.

The series may be case-driven but it doesn't skimp on the character
development. Jack is the hero, but his tunnel vision sometimes puts his clients
in danger of losing a much-needed settlement and other lawyers poke at his bouts
of righteous indignation. Smooth operator and office lothario Charlie Darling
("Call me Darling") isn't at all how you'd picture the typical ladies'
man and a gay character gets to be the normal, level-headed member of the crew
instead of the comic relief or the celibate best friend. While you may not like
all of them, you can relate, and when the season ends with one lawyer in jail,
two in an affair, and one possibly out the door, you will be cursing the short
season format.

Each New Street Law: The Complete First Season disc features a crisp
anamorphic picture and Dolby Digital track. Scene cutaways are paired with a
sound effect that moves across the speakers with a "whoosh" that helps
ratchet up the drama. Alas, we get no subtitles but for once a British import
has extras: a set of outtakes that are just an endless reel of blown lines and
bad takes that aren't interesting or funny. An excruciating series of takes
where a judge tries to hit billiard balls in a certain order guarantees you'll
only watch this feature once. It's a nice gesture but a total waste of
space.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Court works differently in England. Rather than having a lawyer, a person has
to hire a solicitor who then connects them with a barrister to represents them
at trial. Instead of a practice, barristers form chambers and can work defense
and prosecution cases as they choose.

I'm telling you this because the people who produced this set didn't include
so much as a paragraph of explanation on the discs or the insert, and leave you
to figure it all out as you go. Until you can get your bearings, it feels like
you've been dumped in a foreign environment with a WWII paratrooper's phrase
book. 'Ou est le general? Je suis Americain!'

Closing Statement

If you're weary of L&O reruns and need a law-show fix without a
lot of ridiculous subplots, New Street Law is a sure bet. It's so
compulsively watchable you can run through the whole set in a few days, if
you're not careful, but the number and variety of cases in each episode makes up
for the shorter UK season.

The Verdict

For putting some effort into their latest release, the court believes Koch
Vision is showing signs of remorse, and is therefore sentenced to community
service. Perhaps a few dozen hours shoveling dropped punctuation in a subtitle
warehouse will make them see the error of their ways?

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